The Wrong Tool For the Job Is Usually Me

I just spent 20 minutes trying to re-hang one of Zak's closet doors. Well, that's not entirely true. At first a couple of his doors were just out of their bottom tracks, which sometimes happens when he and Taryn have been playing in his room and knock them a bit. But as I tried to tug the first one back into place I over-compensated a bit for only using one arm and accidentally pulled it off its top track. Then as I was trying to get the door back on its top track I again used a little too much force (frustration was creeping in by this point) and somehow knocked the other TWO doors both off their top tracks.

By this point I was just a poke in the eye away from being in a Three Stooges skit. But I eventually got them all back on. And as much as I'd like to chalk the whole thing up to my favorite scapegoat for anything that doesn't go quite right these days -- The Fact That I Have a Broken Wrist -- a contributing factor was undoubtedly that I am just not very handy.

Whoever coined the phrase that they couldn't use any tool with more moving parts than a screwdriver was definitely a kindred spirit of mine. I don't build things or change my own oil. Doing this would probably challenge me.

I put the front tire fork of Taryn's Dora bicycle on backwards this past Christmas and didn't realize it -- one of my neighbors had to point it out. I think Michael Keaton's "220, 221 -- whatever it takes" line in Mr. Mom is funny but I'm not sure why.

As I was disconnecting the washing machine in our house in Dallas for the movers to take to Denver I somehow unleashed a gusher of boiling hot water into our laundry room. So I did the only logical thing -- called Danelle, who had already gotten a job in Denver and moved out a couple of months earlier. "Um...turn it off," was her brilliant suggestion. So I wrapped a towel around my hand and did just that. Fortunately I had the good sense to leave the dryer hooked up for all the towels I had to use to sop up the aftermath. But seriously, I couldn't think of that on my own?

I do have one accomplishment that I point to when I'm accused of having no skills in this area at all -- I installed a shower door in our house in Conifer. The caulking job looked like a second-grader's attempt to ice a cake, but it never leaked or fell apart so at least it was functional. Aesthetics are for wimps.

I'm a firm believer that I get paid for the skills I do have so I can pay other people to do things I don't have the skills for. I don't suppose there's much chance Zak learned that lesson while he watched me from his bed during my struggle with the doors, though.